Renewal
by TrenchcoatsAreSexy
Summary: Sequel to "Starting Point" - things get better... somewhat.


**Renewal**

"You don't think she actually really wants to take care of him?" Wilson hears the note of glee in the voice for the first time as he gazes across the desk in his office to focus on Sam Carr's blood-red fingernails. She's tapping his desk and smiling pleasantly, projecting an air of sympathy the way that she has for the past month and a half, and the way she did on the phone for months before that. The first Mrs. Wilson, and she's back in his life and he needs her. But what she tells him scares him utterly. "I've seen enough of this at my hospital, you know – horrible things can happen when people with these kind of injuries are left alone with someone who's resentful of taking care of them." She taps the desk again. "Like I said before, you really need to look into finding somewhere where House can get the help he needs." She's changed to her doctor-voice now, the too-slow one where she's trying to convince the patient that they need a treatment that they don't really want to agree to.

Wilson's phone rings, and he nearly jumps out of his seat. He picks it up like he's pulling a hot metal pan out of the shove and places it gingerly to his ear. It's been a while since he had a drink, and the withdrawal and what Sam's telling him are both making him jumpy, crawling out of his skin. It's not the first time she's said things like this and at first he didn't believe them, didn't want to believe them but the more he hears them, the more sense they make and the more he backs away from Amber and House and the more suspicious he gets of his girlfriend's motives.

"Hello," he says into the phone.

"Dr. Wilson, you need to come see this. I'm in the MRI lab." It's Foreman's voice on the other end, and then a click as the neurologist hangs up the phone. Wilson looks at Sam sympathetically, but he's glad to get out of the conversation.

Really, he knows what she wants. She wants him back, and she doesn't want House in the picture – that much is clear. But does that mean that all her claims are false? Or could Amber really be hurting him?

He walks out of the room and he doesn't go straight to the lab. Instead, he walks into Cuddy's office.

"I need to know if Amber's hurting him," he blurts out. Cuddy looks at him, utterly perplexed.

"You think Amber's hurting House?" she asks, "Why do you think that?" He gives a shrug.

"She's not really the maternal type," he replies flimsily.

"They're both here right now, you know," Cuddy says gently, but he suspects that anyway, having seen Amber poised next to him in the conference room, having seen him engaging in the differential, but the hope he felt after seeing that has been demolished by Sam's insinuations. "I can get to the truth of it, if you want."

Wilson walks out the door and walks through the door of the MRI lab, and he's only slightly shocked to see House's feet sticking out of the machine.

"Come see this," Foreman says from behind the glass, close to a command. Wilson wants to bark at him for using his friend as an experiment, a guinea pig – but he has to get close to Foreman to do it, and when he does he sees Foreman tapping the screen as bursts of red and yellow show up on the scan.

"House's scan after the…" Foreman trails off a moment, "incident showed… maybe a fifth of this activity. In particular, his retrieval mechanism seemed to be totally shot, if we considered the neuro tests we gave him afterwards. But check this out." He hits a button and says into it, "Hey House?"

"Hey Foreman?" House half-echoes from inside the chamber.

"Who's the president?" There's an uncomfortable pause. It seems to tick by for minutes or maybe hours, and Wilson almost turns and leaves, sure this is some kind of sick joke to rub salt in the wound.

"Obama," House replies finally, before adding sarcastically, "You ought to be thrilled." Foreman beams at Wilson.

"A year ago…" Foreman begins, "He had no clue. He could barely speak, couldn't walk. This is major progress."

"Really?" Wilson asks, and he feels his heart breaking because he hadn't noticed. His old friend had been coming back in pieces and he'd been too drunk and shattered to notice, too busy crying into Sam's ear… _Sam… _He had to get to the bottom of those accusations, but he didn't want to bring it up in front of Foreman.

"All right, House, we're bringing you out now," Foreman says into the microphone as he presses the button to conveyor House back out of the MRI.

As soon as he's out of the machine, he steps over the edge and wobbles slightly; Amber appears as if from out of nowhere to mount his arm on her shoulder and help him up. She doesn't notice Wilson right away, but he watches her, determined and leading House out the door to parts of the hospital unknown. He tries to reconcile what he's seeing with what Sam keeps telling him – _people always resent this, and I don't mean to be cruel but he's not anything to Amber now is he? She's not going to want to take care of him… _

He clamps his hands over his ears to keep the voice out and he walks out of the room as Foreman stares after him.

* * *

><p>Later that day, as Amber and House toil over a medical textbook, memorizing each definition over and over, again and again – <em>that's almost right, let's try it one more time okay House?<em> – Cuddy appears and wants to talk to House in her office. Alone.

"He'll be okay," Cuddy says to Amber, "I'll page you when we're done, I just have to ask him something personal?" And then she spirits him away while Amber is left staring at a diagram of the human heart. She wonders what a diagram of a broken heart might look like.

"Does Amber hurt you?" Cuddy blurts as soon as the door closes, and House looks at her in confusion. First of all, he can't quite place the name, Amber, "with amber waves of grain" gets stuck in his head on repeat and he shakes his head to try and clear it and he's cycling through names and places and all he can get is the image of the inside of a bus, grainy and spinning rapidly.

"No," he replies, because he's sure he'd be able to place the name of someone who hurt him, or an instance of being hurt – the thought appears in his head that Stacy had hurt him, but that was a long time ago and he doesn't quite remember how or why. _Medically irrelevant,_ his mind chirps.

"You don't remember who Amber is, do you?" Cuddy asks with a sigh. He pauses a moment and then nods. "A blonde woman…"

"Cameron," House replies quickly.

"No," Cuddy cuts him off, "She's younger than Cameron. She dates Wilson. _She lives with you._" House nods quickly, knowing who she means now. Why can't he place the name to the face? "Does she hurt you?"

"No," House replies again, more resolutely this time.

"Would you," Cuddy pauses and she shudders a bit at the request, as if she's confronting an abused child, but she's seen what this whole situation has done to Wilson and has to at least give him the reassurance that his girlfriend isn't doing horrid things to his best friend while he's at work. Maybe it would make him show up more often. "Let me check you?" House's eyes widen as he realizes what she means.

"…Okay," he asks after a moment, and then blinks. "Are you gonna buy me dinner first?" Cuddy lets out a nervous laugh and forces a grin.

"Maybe after?" she asks with a smile. A little of the old House shining through. _Things might be okay, it's just slow going._ House tilts his head to the side and shrugs, as Cuddy walks over and locks the door. "All right, can you remove your shirt for me…?"

"What kind of a girl do you think I am?" House retorts. "Okay, okay…"

* * *

><p>"Ready to go for dinner?" Sam chirps as Wilson arrives back at his office. He hesitates.<p>

"Sam, I don't know if this is right," he says quietly, "I mean, I'm with Amber, and I don't know if we should be seeing each other like this."

"Oh come on, James," Sam retorts, moving to put her hand on his shoulder, "We're not doing anything wrong…"

That's when Cuddy appears in the hallway, marching forward with determination. She stares down, not able to meet Wilson's eyes for a moment, and when she does she notices a puddle on the floor, likely created by the oft-malfunctioning water fountain that's just been installed and which no one uses because the water resembles what comes out of a waterbed when it's cleaned after a few years. She steps over the puddle and raises her eyes, seeing Sam with surprise before she locks her eyes on her.

"Well, who's this?" she inquires, keeping her voice calm. Wilson swallows, feeling caught out, wanting to explain that it's not what it looks like, that Sam was there to listen when he needed a friend, when he was drowning in all of this… But he feels like a complete cad any way he looks at it.

"This is Sam Carr… my ex-wife," Wilson explains softly.

"Oh?" Cuddy replies, narrowing her eyes at Sam and then looking at Wilson. "Want you to know that I checked out your 'abuse' theory – and there's no merit to it." Sam takes a slow step back and suddenly all becomes clear to Cuddy. She opens her mouth in shock. "Oh, you bitch," she blurts out, "I see it all, now." She jerks her finger in Wilson's direction. "He was just too drunk to see it." Wilson looks hurt and offended, and Cuddy looks back at him a moment. "_You're_ going to rehab if you want to keep your job. I can't believe I let this go on as long as I did." She looks back at Sam. "You wanted Wilson back. You wanted to turn him against Amber and take his place. You used a man with fucking brain injury to try and get back in Wilson's pants. Please get the fuck out of my hospital and never return." Wilson's jaw drops slightly at hearing Cuddy curse so freely, something he's never seen before. Sam turns and walks away quickly, and Cuddy's eyes go back to Wilson. "Amber never _touched_ him – in fact, she's helped him enormously. I'd like you to know that I humiliated House for nothing other than that bitch putting ideas in your head."

"Wasn't humiliating." And Wilson turns and – _this can only get worse _– House is standing there, leaning on Amber whose blue eyes are fire in Wilson's direction. "I'm upset I didn't get that happy ending I wanted, though."

Wilson can't stay here. He turns and he runs towards the exit, towards safety, but he feels the floor fall out from under him and suddenly he's lying on the ground in pain, clutching his tailbone and moaning.

* * *

><p>When Wilson wakes up, he's lying in a hospital bed and Amber is waving a packet of papers in front of his face.<p>

"Rehab papers," she says as she tosses them on to his chest. "My question is, will you get help today?"

"Yeah," Wilson murmurs, as he's too dazed and tired to do anything other than consent, "I will."

"Good," Amber replies, "Because you've got a lot of making up to do. I've been taking care of both of you for months now, and it's time you started pulling your weight."

Wilson swallows and he looks from his girlfriend to his best friend, to his boss who's still looking at him with distinct disappointment. He'd been drowning, and they were pulling him out. He just needed to grab the oar…

And it was floating ever closer.


End file.
